MORE than half the Coalition's 37 senators have formally declared their opposition to Malcolm Turnbull's desire to cut a deal with Labor on the emissions trading scheme, setting up a showdown next week that many fear could tear the Opposition apart.
As the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, linked the heatwave savaging southern Australia to global warming, the Coalition senators split into two camps - those backing Mr Turnbull and those backing the Opposition Senate leader and climate change sceptic, Nick Minchin.
In the most open show of defiance to date, 12 Liberals and all five Nationals sat in solidarity behind Senator Minchin as he slammed the emissions trading scheme and Mr Rudd's desire to pass it before the Copenhagen conference next month.
"Mr Rudd is prepared to sacrifice Australia's national interest on the altar of his vanity," Senator Minchin said.
The senator, who contends man-made climate change is a global left-wing conspiracy, said it was "a disgrace" to describe carbon dioxide as pollution.
"The Senate overwhelmingly rejected this abomination in August. It should do so again."
Apart from the show of force by the 17 senators - including the deputy Senate leader, Eric Abetz, who sat behind Senator Minchin, three others in the group were unable to attend.
That makes 21 out of 37 hostile to Mr Turnbull's acceptance that there should be a deal with Labor. In the corridors afterwards, Senator Minchin's supporters lauded the success of their display. "We were tightly packed behind him; it was a show of solidarity," said one.
While Mr Turnbull and his chief negotiator, Ian Macfarlane, are optimistic a deal will be struck with the Government and approved by a majority of Liberals, there are fears about the consequences of risking a large split.
Mr Turnbull's followers were speculating that should he prevail, Senator Minchin would have to leave the frontbench and should consider resigning altogether. Rebels believed Mr Turnbull's leadership would be untenable if he failed.
"This will leave a lingering bitterness in the party that will hang around for years," said one senior Liberal. Said another veteran: "There's more tension in the party than I have known in more than 15 years here."
Tony Abbott, who once advocated passing the bill, is now arguing internally that it should be opposed for the sake of party unity.
Senator Minchin's followers were claiming Mr Turnbull's "henchmen" were ringing young rebel senators and MPs and warning them they would be jeopardising their futures.
Mr Rudd demanded Mr Turnbull guarantee there be a vote before Parliament rises for the year next Thursday. As the nation sweltered in a spring heatwave, the Prime Minister lashed the Coalition's climate change deniers.
"It is as if we are back into the trial of Galileo or something and they are simply arguing somehow that science is a fiction and that they alone, in their own prejudiced view, occupy fact," he said.
"No wonder the Leader of the Opposition has such a hard time. If you have to put up with that mate, I have sympathy for you, I really do."
The Finance Minister, Lindsay Tanner, also ridiculed Senator Minchin and his followers.
"Senator Minchin is incubating a kind of rural militia from backwoods Montana in the Senate," he said.
Mr Macfarlane told a business function on Wednesday night that the call to wait until after Copenhagen was irrelevant because Mr Rudd was setting the timetable. He said the Government had a mandate to introduce an emissions trading scheme. "I'm negotiating on the basis that by the time the Senate rises at the end of next week he will have what he is demanding but it will be on our terms."
The Government needs seven Senate votes and there are more than enough Liberal senators who will support a scheme if the party accepts the Government's offer.
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